THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE FOOT-LIGHTS
You think it will not be different from any other, but it will, and it is. It seems to cause the growth of envy, and a good deal of uncharitableness. Your friend of yesterday, to whom you wondered how you would get along, is your enemy of to-day. Why? Because you had a round of applause, and a line of approbation in the morning paper. The stage director orders you at a certain time to take the centre of the stage, the leading man is indignant at your being pushed forward; he revenges himself at night by moving his face in such away, "mugging" is the stage slang, that the audience is attracted to him, and from you. The next day he is reprimanded before the whole company, and the result of it all is that you have made a bitter enemy, innocently enough, and one who does not speak to you the entire season, but who is only too ready to speak against you. You think men do not do this off the stage? My dear, they do it on. This is not the worst. When two or three or four or five members of the theatrical profession meet, what do they talk about? Great plays? Great actors? Or the value of study? Oh! no. The successes and failures and follies of each other. What you hear will shock you
